The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-09-20
THE SWEET BARD OF AVON.
Shakespeare Contributed 1000 New
Words to the Language.
F,oD, the CHICAGO Tribune.

F'on, the Chicago Tribune.
Every number of the New English Die
tionary"will be to Shakejpeareans worth the
cost of the whole work. 1t will throw
thousand side-lights on Shakespeare's Ian
guage which they have always longed for
but could never hope to behold. How much
of our vocabulary and its significance can
be traced back no further than the great
dramatist will be revealed so clearly that
he who runneth may read. Something of
this disclosure may be seen in any fraction
of the stupendous work Turning over the
first 200 pages of the FIRST number it will be
ascertained that lag words are first found in
Shakespeare, either altogether or in some Of
their meanings. AT this rate our total in
debtedness cannot be less than for 1000
Shakespeafean words or meanings. Rome
owed only one word TO Julius Cesar. The
nature of our debt will be more apparent if
we examine some of these hundred and q
half of Shakespearean words, all SO near
the beginning of the alphabet that the last of
them is "air.n We owe the poet the first
use of the word "airn itself i'll one OF its senses
as a noun, and in three as a verb or parti
ciple. He first said 'air-drawn' and air
Less He added a new Specification to
airy and aerial" Nobody before him
had written ''aired, and more than 1.-THE
of the verbal gifts now in view were such
perfect participles. Weilnigh as many were
adverbs In no previous writer have DR..
Murrays Argus eyes detected accidental
ly," nor any of the following. "Abjectly,"
"acutely, 'admiringly, "adoptedly, +" lad
versely.n How our fathers could exist SO
long without some of these vocables must
move our special wonder. To absolutely
accordingly, e" actively and affection
atelyn shakespeare added new sense 1t
is not little surprising that the word
abreast" was never printed before the cou-
plet.
My soul shall thine keep company to Heaven;
larry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast.
OF the l46 words and meanings first-given
us by Shakespeare at least two-thirds are of
classical origin Baconians will say that
such gift could not by any possibility
come from man of ''srnall Latin and less
Greek. Others will enlarge their ideas of
what Ben Jonson meant by small" The
strangest thing Seelnsto be that so few of
Shakespeare innOvations-not so much as
one-flfth--have become obsolete. He gave
them not only life but Immortality. 1t is
perhaps equally noteworthy that while he
was never read so much as to-day, no writer
before him land scarcely one of his con-
temporaries) cited as authors of words and
senses is pow read at all, save by special
students.
The question, NV here did Shakespeare
get his novelties in languagef who can an
swer, His 'accoutred" was in print ten
years before any other writer gives US any
of this verb, which it is agreed come
from Latin through French. The noun
"accoutrementn was earlier, but only in rare
books. In one instance Shakespeare is err
roneously said 70 show the earliest specimen
of a certain meaning. Act" as one of the
main divisions in dramatic work, is cred
tied 10 Shakespeare in 1913. But this word
is in the epilogue of Henry VIII" which,
downward from DR.. JonsoH, has not been
regarded as ShaRespeare's work in any line
of It. In no one OF the Shakespearean
dramas as published in the authors lifetime
Is there any division asIto acts at ALL The
quarto Of the 9~Alerry Wives,H published
three years after The authors death shows no
act or scenes. In the first folio, published
seven years after his death, the modern
separation into parts occurs. IL is indicated,
however, only by Latin words as octus
priHUS, secuHRus, etc. Our iudisputable
Shakespearcan debts are too great TO need
any doubtful additions. In one ease, how
ever, DIR. Murray failsto render 10 Shakes
peare his due. Regarding Adonis in Greek
mythology, his first citation dates from
1853. He forgot this line i'm Henry
W.:
Thy promises arc Ike Adons' gardens,
rs well as Fetch thee straight Adonis,n in
Tanning Of the Shrew.n